Dinosaur Trilogy
by igeria
Summary: Three loosely related stories in which: River has a question, Zoe may or may not get lost but Wash DOES drive Mal crazy, Simon loses a little something from the infirmary, and a very minor villian meets a very bad end.
1. A Simple Question

"Actually," Inara was telling Kaylee in her shuttle across the ship, "it's fairly simple. The hardest part is figuring out what people want. After that everything you should do becomes clear. Deciphering what people want, that is the difficult task. That is an art. That requires finesse."

"Can'tcha just ask?" Kaylee asked, and Inara only laughed.

River looked up from the protein cake she was pushing around her plate and across to Jayne, who was trying to eat his own mash while keeping one eye on her chopsticks.

"What do you want?" she asked him point-blank.

He looked startled, then suspicious. "Nuthin," he said. He kept both eyes on her after that. Jayne wasn't a very good test though. Jayne was a liar. Preacher was watching them both but Preacher was a liar too. She gathered up her dignity and left.

Zoe and Wash were on the bridge. Zoe looked up and smiled at her as she came in; Wash reached out and picked up his evil dinosaur.

"Hello, foolish human," Wash said in his evil dinosaur voice. She didn't know why; he wasn't fooling anyone.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to eat--your braiiin!" he said, and hesitated. "Ah...oops?"

"Wash!" Zoe said.

"You," she said, "Not your dinosaurs. You, Wash." Like her, sometimes he needed to be reminded of who he was. "What do _you_ want?"

"I want... it all!" Wash stretched out his arms expansively and leaned back in his chair. "I want everything!"

"Well, you're not going to get it," River felt honor-bound to tell him. It was theoretically impossible, just for a start. But Wash didn't care.

"Of course I will!" he said. "My beautiful and stunning and, might I add, cunning wife is going to steal it for me."

"Wash..." Zoe warned again, but she sounded amused.

"She'll come home at the end of the day one day and I'll say 'Wife, what did you steal for us today?' 'Everything,' she'll say. You'll see."

"But then you'll only have half of everything," River pointed out.

"Ah, but, what's hers is mine. So see, little River, it will all work out just as I've nefariously planned."

River could have argued that point, but she didn't. Wash's initial assumptions were fallacious anyway. She turned to Zoe.

"I've got what I want," Zoe said before River could ask, "mostly. Wouldn't mind a bit of fuel, some supplies in case we run into some trouble."

"Someone say trouble?" Mal asked, walking in as if from nowhere. "Girl, didn't I tell you not to set foot on this bridge without your brother?"

"You told Simon not to set foot on the bridge," she said.

"Exactly," Mal said.

River left without asking what the captain wanted. On her way she made a point of passing Jayne in the hall. "What do you want?" she asked him again.

"Gorram it girl, I want you to get the hell out of my ruttin' way," he said, but he didn't push past her like he would have Simon. He stalked off in the other direction, even though there was nothing there he wanted.

Kaylee and Inara were still in the shuttle talking around Simon, so only Simon himself was left to talk to. What did Simon really want? She went down to sickbay and asked him over and over, wearing him down until he was exhausted to the point of honesty.

"I want you to get better, mei mei," he said finally, but there was no malice in his voice. "You don't have to be the person that you used to be. But I want you to be able to choose who you become yourself. Do you understand?"

She did. Simon was honest with her as he was honest with himself. But even though she knew what he wanted, everything she had to do did not become clear.

Kaylee was in the engine room by now, but it was Inara she wanted to talk to. On her way to the Inara's shuttle she cut through the cargo bay to drop by where Jayne was cleaning his gun in quiet for once, avoiding her on purpose. He knew what she was going to ask before she asked it.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"What do you want?" he mimicked.

"I want to know what you want," she said.

"I want to know what you want," he said.

"Jayne is _daì ruò mù ji_," she said.

"_Zhùzuî_," he muttered and stalked off.

Simon would have told her not to do that. But Simon was just sitting in the infirmary looking at his over-organized shelves and seeing nothing. She tired him out with her questions and she felt guilty to realize it, more even than she felt for making Jayne feel stupid when he wasn't really, and when he really wanted people to think he was smart. _Daì ruò mù ji_, dumb as a wooden chicken, Kaylee taught her that the other week and it was, in her defense, really fun to say.

Kaylee was in the engine room alone now, not-not-thinking about Jubal Early. Inara was in her shuttle making tea, and River really wanted some. But she felt the weight of Simon in the back of her mind, heavy and tired. She turned and went down to the engine room almost without thinking about it.

"Hey River," Kaylee said as she came in. "What can I do for ya?"

River sighed heavily and moved a wrench closer to the toolbox with her foot.

"Simon's in the infirmary," she said. Kaylee stared at her in expectation and she sighed again. "He wants you," she explained. "I think he'd like to talk to you right now."

She knew now why Inara couldn't just ask people what they wanted. They didn't always know. It was a good thing River was around to figure things out.


	2. A Little Lost

"Zoe don't get lost," Wash said confidently. And he was, till Mal chipped in. Cause Mal said,

"Yeah, sure," in that distant, uninterested way of his that said he was thinking on trouble, and Zoe being late was the only trouble Wash could think of.

Mal didn't say anything else, just kept staring out the viewport, hands clasped behind his back, just thinking. Thinking. Thinking 'til Wash thought he might go crazy.

"Will you quit that?" Mal snapped suddenly, and Wash jumped. Geez, all he'd been doing was drumming with his fingers along the console.

"Just, you know," he explained, patting the controls, "stayin' in touch with _Serenity_ Mal, that's all. Ever at the ready Mal, that's me."

Mal glared.

"Yep, soon as Zoe gets back I'm totally ready, we'll be up and off a' this planet before you can say 'hello, husband'. Well not that _you_'d say 'hello husband', but--"

"We ain't goin' no where 'till I say so, for starters, and I'm thinkin' maybe we'll pick up a little cargo. Cargo, Wash, remember? The reason we're on this ruttin' planet? To wait for cargo? That we can deliver? And get paid? Am I bein' clear? Cargo? Pick up? Get paid?"

"Geez, Mal. Cargo. Wait for it. I got it."

"Good."

"Not going anywhere without cargo. Or Zoe. We got cargo and no Zoe, I ain't goin' Mal, I don't--"

"Wash. _Bì zuî_."

That hurt his feelings some, but he didn't show it. Mal wanted him to shut up, he could shut up.

"Zoe don't get lost though Mal," he said.

"Maybe she does, maybe she don't. But she ain't in any trouble she can't handle, so just. _Bì. Zuî_."

Desperate, he picked up his stegosaurus with one hand and his TRex with the other.

_Gee, Zoe sure is late,_ said Steggie. Silently.

_Don't worry, Zoe doesn't get lost,_ said TRex, and Wash paused, because this was a little out of character.

_Gee, Zoe sure is late,_ mimed Steggie again.

_That's 'cause someone ate her,_ said TRex. Wash stared at T Rex, incredulous. _Sishengzi,_ he thought and threw TRex across the room. Catching himself, he looked up at Mal from the corner of his eye, but Mal was clenching his teeth and back to staring out the viewport. He looked a little twitchy, but that was probably because Zoe was running late.

_Gee, Zoe sure is late,_ Wash said to Steggie.

_Don't worry, Zoe doesn't get lost,_ Steggie said confidently. That was better.

_That's what I told Mal,_ he told Steggie. _But does Mal listen to me? Nooooo. Like this one time, back on..._

"Wash," Mal said.

He looked up immediately. "Zoe here?"

"Quit doin' that."

"What?"

"What ever you're doing with that..." he gestured at the stegosaurus. Pretty dismissively, Wash thought.

"You know Mal, my wife is missing--my wife!--missing on some _yúchûn_-ass rendezvous you sent her out on might I add, you could treat my stegosaurus and me with a little more... respect."

"Respect!?"

"Concern," Wash backtracked.

"Oh I'm concerned," Mal said. "My _liúmáng_ pilot's having an imaginary conversation with some _chun dòngwù_ imaginary friend!"

"Hey!" Wash objected, lifting Steggie into view. "Right here!"

"My _nuòfu, liúmáng_ pilot's having an actual, rutting _conversation_ with some _chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo--_"

"Language," River said over the comm.

Mal leaned over and pushed all the comm buttons at once.

"Simon, get your _qin ài de_ sister off my goddamn comm!"

Wash looked at Mal warily in the sudden silence. Mal didn't look to good. If Wash didn't know him any better, he'd think Mal was getting pretty riled.

The comm clicked on again and Simon said, "Ah, right away Captain." But his voice sounded strangled and in the background Wash though he could make out Kaylee laughing, real quiet but hysterical, kinda... muffled? Like... by a pillow?

"Right now, Simon," Mal said sternly into the comm.

"Those crazy kids," Wash said, and chortled villainously, "Bwahahahahaaaah." If things progressed as they seemed Zoe was soon going to be owing him 20 I-told-you-so, you-should-trust-my-keen-and-killer-instincts, beautiful, wonderous, gloatworthy credits. _To the victor go the spoils,_ he told the stegosaurus, but not out loud, because Mal seemed a little tetchy about the dinosaurs for whatever reason.

"Simon ain't a kid," Mal said, grumpily, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Yeah, sure," Wash said. That was an opinion of Mal's that changed according to the argument of the day, but Wash took the high road and virtuously refused to be drawn in.

Still resentful of the blatant, ongoing dinosaur discrimination, Wash got up and picked up the TRex, brushed it off and restored it to its rightful place in the dinosaur habitat. Then he met Mal's glare with a challenging glare of his own. Okay, not a glare. More of a dashing, eyebrow-raised inquisitive glance that he'd practiced in front of the mirror. Zoe claimed to like it. Mal, apparently not so much. 'Cause it seemed to provoke him from towering into more of a... looming type presence.

"Wash," he said.

"Zoe seem like she's running late to you, Mal?" Wash asked.

"You understand that all this... _gôu pì_... " he paused and together they waited for an interruption on the comm that never came. "..._fèhuà_ is here by my sufferance?"

"I don't... see how any... suffering... is really involved," he protested, but unsteadily, cause Mal had increasingly loomed towards him, following him down into his chair.

"Oh," Mal said dangerously, his breath now on Wash's face, "I do."

"Hey boys," came the sound of Zoe's voice, as always as melodious and welcome as a chorus of heavenly angels, or the sound of clinking money, or--

Mal straightened up immediately, looking guilty not a whit.

"You're late," he said in his Sergeant-y voice. But Zoe didn't look concerned, she was looking over at Wash, all smiles and happiness.

"Sorry about that," she said easily. "I got a little lost."


	3. Intent fka lost n' found

Mal caught him red handed in the cargo bay, poking around the alcove of sorts where River and Kaylee sometimes retreated to play jacks. His voice was deceptively mild, Simon's first clue that he was in deep, deep trouble.

"Hey Doc. Looking for something?"

"Yes, actually," he said, keeping his head down, looking below the stairs.

"And what might that be?" Mal asked, heavy footfalls drawing closer by the second. Simon straightened up just as Mal drew near and found himself backed into the corner. Literally and figuratively, since Mal was for an answer and there really was no good way to say it.

"A... scalpel?" he answered, but his voice was more hesitant than he meant to make it.

"A scalpel."

Simon swallowed. "...Yes?"

"Yes or no, Doc, which is it?"

"Ah... yes."

Mal moved a shade closer, radiating slight and harmless curiosity. "You misplace it?"

"I... it's... just... lost."

"Lost," Mal said calmly.

"Yes. But River doesn't have it," Simon hastened to assure him.

Mal raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'm glad you seem sure of that."

"Yes. Not... right now, at any rate."

Mal smiled a little, and not in a friendly way. "Now, that do seem a mite different."

"But Zoe's keeping an eye on her until I find it."

Mal put one elbow up on the railing, crowding him a little. "Then you're gonna lock 'em up some, I imagine."

"Yes. Absolutely," Simon agreed. He'd have agreed to almost anything at this point, because Mal was very close and smiling very, very scarily.

"Even more than... previous."

"Yes. Absolutely."

Mal nodded. "So they were locked up then. Previous."

"Well...." Caught. "River is a very smart girl, and very..."

"Intuitive," Mal suggested.

"Intuitive. Yes."

"About locks, even, a person might... intuit."

Simon swallowed again, but it was harder this time. "Yes. Precisely."

"And it's not that the idea hadn't occurred to me before, as you say, precisely..."

"Captain....

"It's just that there's a difference between the knowing of something might happen, one day, and then the knowing that something did happen."

"Did...?"

"As, I imagine, there's a difference between knowing a scalpel's gone missing and actually seeing it--buried to the hilt in the very throat..."

_Oh, God..._

"Of one very, _very_ dead..."

_Oh, my God..._

"Dinosaur."

..._wait..._

"...Dinosaur?"

"Now don't get me wrong Simon, there's no love lost between me and any of those pieces of _fèhuà_, but is an unsettling sight, I'm sure you will agree."

"You... yes."

"And Wash _claims_ that that particular piece of _fèhuà_ deserved it, but he seems a little, I don't know, stricken."

"Of course. I'll...."

"Now, there's a man you should be brushing up on your headshrinkin' texts about. You know what Zoe said?"

He shook his head.

"She says even the... whichit... is a _manifestation_ of Wash. Can you believe that?"

"...Yes?"

"Woman used have her head on straight. Used to be trustable. Still trustable. Still. But... _manifestations?_ Disturbin'."

"Yes, I...."

_"Almost as disturbin' as walking onto my gorram bridge and finding a ruttin' dinosaur feet up with a scalpel right through it's gorram neck!"_

In the following silence, somewhere down the ship, where Mal's voice was surely echoing, Simon could hear Jayne laughing. Uproariously. He closed his eyes. He could feel bile rising to the back of his throat and cursed every psychosomatic reaction in the book, all of which were threatening to swamp him at the thought of River. With a scalpel. And deadly intent. And Mal was talking again. Pleasantly.

"...be frank I hated those ruttin' things. Wash talks to 'em. Right inside that empty, empty head of his. With me right in the room. Can you believe that?"

He thought maybe he could speak. If he tried.

"And about me, too," Mal continued, from about six inches away, where he had been since mid-yell, but his tone was conversational again. "I'm sure of it. I get an itchy kinda feeling when folks are talking about me, and I _know_. Damn thing about this scalpel though."

At the word _scalpel_ he again had Simon's full and complete attention.

"Serenity ain't no battle cruiser, but she's a fine ship. This scalpel of yours? Full inch into the metal."

Simon tried not to think about the force behind that kind of blow, in that slender arm.

"Pegged Jayne for it frankly, but he says if he wanted to kill one of Wash's ruttin toys he'd shoot the shit out of it. Sounds right to me." Mal's face split into an almost-friendly grin. "Besides," he added conspiratorially, "he's too scared a' Zoe."

Simon laughed without thinking, but he could hear the nervousness underneath. Mal was still standing much too close.

"That's a pretty fine scalpel, is what I think," Mal said.

"Best money can buy," Simon agreed, his voice strangled. Mal laughed and reached out and grabbed him with one hand, thumb on his ear and hand wrapped around the back of his head, and shook him in a rough but friendly fashion.

"Only the best for _Serenity_, eh Simon?" he says. Some agreement seemed to be called for so Simon managed an

"Only the best."

Mal was still grinning as he let him go.

"Supper's in five minutes. You got that long to learn to laugh about this, wouldn't want to set Kaylee or Wash to thinkin'."

Simon knew what that meant; it meant Zoe and Jayne were already thinking. But Mal was still smiling, not dangerous but... unsettling.

"Kaylee come in with the deed still done, never saw her so fit to bust a gut."

He's pretty sure that means Kaylee found it funny.

"Dinner in five," Mal said again. "And Wash's got the scalpel hanging in front of the viewport, damned if I know why."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Don't thank me, you're the poor _liúmáng_ that has to do surgery on a plastic corpse. But Simon."

He looked up.

"Don't care how you do it, just make sure that damn thing doesn't 'get lost'... ever again."


End file.
